The fire was so cunningly laid that only on one side did it cast a glow,
and there the light was absorbed by a dark thicket of laurels. It was
built under an overhang of limestone so that the smoke in the moonlight
would be lost against the grey face of the rock. But, though the moon
was only two days past the full, there was no sign of it, for the rain
had come and the world was muffled in it. That morning the Kentucky
vales, as seen from the ridge where the camp lay, had been like a
furnace with the gold and scarlet of autumn, and the air had been heavy
with sweet October smells. Then the wind had suddenly shifted, the sky
had grown leaden, and in a queer dank chill the advance-guard of winter
had appeared--that winter which to men with hundreds of pathless miles
between them and their homes was like a venture into an uncharted
continent.
One of the three hunters slipped from his buffalo robe and dived into
the laurel thicket to replenish the fire from the stock of dry fuel. His
figure revealed itself fitfully in the firelight, a tall slim man with a
curious lightness of movement like a cat's. When he had done his work he
snuggled down in his skins in the glow, and his two companions shifted
their positions to be near him. The fire-tender was the leader of the
little party The light showed a face very dark with weather. He had
the appearance of wearing an untidy perruque, which was a tight-fitting
skin-cap with the pelt hanging behind. Below its fringe straggled a
selvedge of coarse black hair. But his eyes were blue and very bright,
and his eyebrows and lashes were flaxen, and the contrast of light and
dark had the effect of something peculiarly bold and masterful. Of the
others one was clearly his brother, heavier in build, but with the same
eyes and the same hard pointed chin and lean jaws. The third man was
shorter and broader, and wore a newer hunting shirt than his fellows and
a broad belt of wool and leather.
This last stretched his moccasins to the blaze and sent thin rings of
smoke from his lips into the steam made by the falling rain.
He bitterly and compendiously cursed the weather. The little party had
some reason for ill-temper. There had been an accident in the creek with
the powder supply, and for the moment there were only two charges left
in the whole outfit. Hitherto they had been living on ample supplies of
meat, though they were on short rations of journey-cake, for their stock
of meal was low. But that night they had supped poorly, for one of them
had gone out to perch a turkey, since powder could not be wasted, and
had not come back.
“I reckon we're the first as ever concluded to winter in Kaintuckee,” he
said between his puffs. “Howard and Salling went in in June, I've heerd.
And Finley? What about Finley, Dan'l?”
“He never stopped beyond the fall, though he was once near gripped by the
snow. But there ain't no reason why winter should be worse on the O-hio
than on the Yadkin. It's a good hunting time, and snow'll keep the
redskins quiet. What's bad for us is wuss for them, says I.... I won't
worry about winter nor redskins, if old Jim Lovelle 'ud fetch up. It
beats me whar the man has got to.”
“Wandered, maybe?” suggested the first speaker, whose name was Neely.
“I reckon not. Ye'd as soon wander a painter. There ain't no sech hunter
as Jim ever came out of Virginny, no, nor out of Caroliny, neither. It
was him that fust telled me of Kaintuck'. 'The dark and bloody land, the
Shawnees calls it,' he says, speakin' in his eddicated way, and dark and
bloody it is, but that's man's doing and not the Almighty's. The land
flows with milk and honey, he says, clear water and miles of clover and
sweet grass, enough to feed all the herds of Basham, and mighty forests
with trees that thick ye could cut a hole in their trunks and drive a
waggon through, and sugar-maples and plums and cherries like you won't
see in no set orchard, and black soil fair crying for crops. And the
game, Jim says, wasn't to be told about without ye wanted to be called a
liar--big black-nosed buffaloes that packed together so the whole
placed seemed moving, and elk and deer and bar past counting.... Wal,
neighbours, ye've seen it with your own eyes and can jedge if Jim was a
true prophet. I'm Moses, he used to say, chosen to lead the Children
of Israel into a promised land, but I reckon I'll leave my old bones on
some Pisgah-top on the borders. He was a sad man, Jim, and didn't look
for much comfort this side Jordan.... I wish I know'd whar he'd gotten
to.”
Squire Boone, the speaker's brother, sniffed the air dolefully. “It's
weather that 'ud wander a good hunter.”
“I tell ye, ye couldn't wander Jim,” said his brother fiercely. “He come
into Kaintuckee alone in '52, and that was two years before Finley. He
was on the Ewslip all the winter of '58. He was allus springing out of a
bush when ye didn't expect him. When we was fighting the Cherokees with
Montgomery in '61 he turned up as guide to the Scotsmen, and I reckon if
they'd attended to him there'ud be more of them alive this day. He was
like a lone wolf, old Jim, and preferred to hunt by hisself, but you
never knowed that he wouldn't come walking in and say 'Howdy' while you
was reckoning you was the fust white man to make that trace. Wander Jim?
Ye might as well speak of wandering a hakk.”
“Maybe the Indians have got his sculp,” said Neely.
“I reckon not,” said Boone. “Leastways if they have, he must ha' struck
a new breed of redskin. Jim was better nor any redskin in Kaintuck',
and they knowed it. I told ye, neighbours, of our doings before you come
west through the Gap. The Shawnees cotched me and Jim in a cane-brake,
and hit our trace back to camp, so that they cotched Finley too, and his
three Yadkiners with him. Likewise they took our hosses, and guns and
traps and the furs we had gotten from three months' hunting. Their chief
made a speech saying we had no right in Kaintuckee and if they cotched
us again our lives'ud pay for it. They'd ha' sculped us if it hadn't
been for Jim, but you could see they knew him, and was feared of
him. Wal, Finley reckoned the game was up, and started back with the
Yadkiners. Cooley and Joe Holden and Mooneyiye mind them, Squire! But I
was feeling kinder cross and wanted my property back, and old Jim--why,
he wasn't going to be worsted by no redskins. So we trailed the
Shawnees, us two, and come up with them one night encamped beside a
salt-lick. Jim got into their camp while I was lying shivering in the
cane, and blessed if he didn't snake back four of our hosses and our
three best Deckards. Tha's craft for ye. By sunrise we was riding south
on the Warriors' Path but the hosses was plumb tired, and afore
midday them pizonous Shawnees had cotched up with us. I can tell ye,
neighbours, the hair riz on my head, for I expected nothing better than
a bloody sculp and six feet of earth.... But them redskins didn't hurt
us. And why, says ye? 'Cos they was scared of Jim. It seemed they had a
name for him in Shawnee which meant the 'old wolf that hunts by night.
They started out to take us way north of the Ohio to their Scioto
villages, whar they said we would be punished. Jim telled me to keep
up my heart, for he reckoned we wasn't going north of no river. Then he
started to make friends with them redskins, and in two days he was the
most popilar fellow in that company. He was a quiet man and for general
melancholious, but I guess he could be amusing when he wanted to. You
know the way an Indian laughs grunts in his stomach and looks at the
ground. Wal, Jim had them grunting all day, and, seeing he could speak
all their tongues, he would talk serious too. Ye could see them savages
listening, like he was their own sachem.”
Boone reached for another faggot and tossed it on the fire. The downpour
was slacking, but the wind had risen high and was wailing in the
sycamores.
“Consekince was,” he went on, “for prisoners we wasn't proper guarded.
By the fourth day we was sleeping round the fire among the Shawnees and
marching with them as we pleased, though we wasn't allowed to go near
the hosses. On the seventh night we saw the Ohio rolling in the hollow,
and Jim says to me it was about time to get quit of the redskins. It
was a wet night with a wind, which suited his plan, and about one in the
morning, when Indians sleep soundest, I was woke by Jim's hand pressing
my wrist. Wal, I've trailed a bit in my day, but I never did such mighty
careful hunting as that night. An inch at a time we crawled out of the
circle--we was lying well back on purpose--and got into the canes. I lay
there while Jim went back and fetched guns and powder. The Lord knows
how he done it without startling the hosses. Then we quit like ghosts,
and legged it for the hills. We was aiming for the Gap, but it took
us thirteen days to make it, travelling mostly by night, and living on
berries, for we durstn't risk a shot. Then we made up with you. I reckon
we didn't look too pretty when ye see'd us first.”
“Ye looked,” said his brother soberly, “Like two scare-crows that had
took to walkin'. There was more naked skin than shirt about you Dan'l.
But Lovelle wasn't complaining, except about his empty belly.”
“He was harder nor me, though twenty years older. He did the leading,
too, for he had forgotten more about woodcraft than I ever know'd....”
The man Neely, who was from Virginia, consumed tobacco as steadily as a
dry soil takes in water.
“I've heerd of this Lovelle,” he said. “I've seed him too, I guess. A
long man with black eyebrows and hollow eyes like as he was hungry. He
used ter live near my folks in Palmer Country. What was he looking for
in those travels of his?”
“Hunting maybe,” said Boone. “He was the skilfullest hunter, I reckon,
between the Potomac and the Cherokee. He brought in mighty fine pelts,
but he didn't seem to want money. Just so much as would buy him powder
and shot and food for the next venture, ye understand.... He wasn't
looking for land to settle on, neighber, for one time he telled me he
had had all the settling he wanted in this world.... But he was looking
for something else. He never talked about it, but he'd sit often with
his knees hunched up and his eyes staring out at nothing like a
bird's. I never know'd who he was or whar he come from. You say it was
Virginny?”
“Aye, Palmer County. I mind his old dad, who farmed a bit of land by
Nelson's Cross Roads, when he wasn't drunk in Nelson's tavern. The boys
used to follow him to laugh at his queer clothes, and hear his fine
London speech when he cursed us. By thunder, he was the one to swear.
Jim Lovelle used to clear us off with a whip, and give the old man his
arm into the shack. Jim too was a queer one, but it didn't do to make
free with him, unless ye was lookin' for a broken head. They was come of
high family, I've heerd.”
“Aye, Jim was a gentleman and no mistake,” said Boone. “The way he held
his head and looked straight through the man that angered him. I reckon
it was that air of his and them glowering eyes that made him powerful
with the redskins. But he was mighty quiet always. I've seen Cap'n Evan
Shelby roaring at him like a bull and Jim just staring back at him, as
gentle as a girl, till the Cap'n began to stutter and dried up. But,
Lordy, he had a pluck in a fight, for I've seen him with Montgomery....
He was eddicated too, and could tell you things out of books. I've
knowed him sit up all night talking law with Mr. Robertson.... He was
always thinking. Queer thoughts they was sometimes.”
“Whatten kind of thoughts, Dan'l?” his brother asked.
Boone rubbed his chin as if he found it hard to explain. “About this
country of Ameriky,” he replied. “He reckoned it would soon have to cut
loose from England, and him knowing so much about England I used ter
believe him. He allowed there 'ud be bloody battles before it happened,
but he held that the country had grown up and couldn't be kept much
longer in short clothes. He had a power of larning about things that
happened to folks long ago called Creeks and Rewmans that pinted that
way, he said. But he held that when we had fought our way quit of
England, we was in for a bigger and bloodier fight among ourselves. I
mind his very words. 'Dan'l,' he says, 'this is the biggest and best
slice of the world which we Americans has struck, and for fifty years
or more, maybe, we'll be that busy finding out what we've got that we'll
have no time to quarrel. But there's going to come a day, if Ameriky s
to be a great nation, when she'll have to sit down and think and make up
her mind about one or two things. It won't be easy, for she won't have
the eddication or patience to think deep, and there'll be plenty selfish
and short-sighted folk that won't think at all. I reckon she'll have
to set her house in order with a hickory stick. But if she wins through
that all right, she'll be a country for our children to be proud of and
happy in.'”
“Children? Has he any belongings?” Squire Boone
Daniel looked puzzled. “I've heerd it said he had a wife, though he
never telled nie of her.”
“I've seed her,” Neely put in. “She was one of Jake Early's daughters up
to Walsing Springs. She didn't live no more than a couple of years after
they was wed. She left a gal behind her, a mighty finelooking gal.
They tell me she's married on young Abe Hanks, I did hear that Abe was
thinking of coming west, but them as told me allowed that Abe hadn't
got the right kinder wife for the Border. Polly Hanker they called her,
along of her being Polly Hanks, and likewise wantin' more than other
folks had to get along with. See?”
This piece of news woke Daniel Boone to attention. “Tell me about Jim's
gal,” he demanded.
“Pretty as a peach,” said Neely “Small, not higher nor Abe's shoulder,
and as light on her feet as a deer. She had a softish laughing look in
her eyes that made the lads wild for her. But she wasn't for them and I
reckon she wasn't for Abe neither. She was nicely eddicated, though she
had jest had field-schooling like the rest, for her dad used to read
books and tell her about 'em. One time he took her to Richmond for
the better part of a winter, where she larned dancing and music. The
neighbours allowed that turned her head. Ye couldn't please her with
clothes, for she wouldn't look at the sun-bonnets and nettle-linen that
other gals wore. She must have a neat little bonnet and send to town for
pretty dresses.... The women couldn't abide her, for she had a high way
of looking at 'em and talking at 'em as if they was jest black trash.
But the men 'ud walk miles to see her on a Sunday.... I never could jest
understand why she took Abe Hanks. 'Twasn't for lack of better offers.”
“I reckon that's women's ways,” said Boone meditatively. “She must
ha' favoured Jim, though he wasn't partickler about his clothes.
Discontented, ye say she was?”
“Aye. Discontented. She was meant for a fine lady, I reckon. I dunno
what she wanted, but anyhow it was something that Abe Hanks ain't likely
to give her. I can't jest picture her in Kaintuck'!”
Squire Boone was asleep, and Daniel drew the flap of his buffalo robe
over his head and prepared to follow suit. His last act was to sniff the
air. “Please God the weather mends,” he muttered. “I've got to find old
Jim.”
Very early next morning there was a consultation. Lovelle had not
appeared and hunting was impossible on two shoots of powder. It was
arranged that two of them should keep camp that day by the limestone
cliff while Daniel Boone went in search of the missing man, for it was
possible that Jim Lovelle had gone to seek ammunition from friendly
Indians. If he did not turn up or if he returned without powder, there
would be nothing for it but to send a messenger back through the Gap for
supplies.
The dawn was blue and cloudless and the air had the freshness of
a second spring. The autumn colour glowed once more, only a little
tarnished; the gold was now copper, the scarlet and vermilion were
dulling to crimson. Boone took the road at the earliest light and made
for the place where the day before he had parted from Lovelle. When
alone he had the habit of talking to himself in an undertone. “Jim was
hunting down the west bank of that there crick, and I heard a shot about
noon beyond them big oaks, so I reckon he'd left the water and gotten on
the ridge.” He picked up the trail and followed it with difficulty,
for the rain had flattened out the prints. At one point he halted and
considered. “That's queer,” he muttered. “Jim was running here. It
wasn't game, neither, for there's no sign of their tracks.” He pointed
to the zig-zag of moccasin prints in a patch of gravel. “That's the way
a man sets his feet when he's in a hurry.”
A little later he stood and sniffed, with his brows wrinkled. He made
an epic figure as he leaned forward, every sense strained, every muscle
alert, slim and shapely as a Greek--the eternal pathfinder. Very gently
he smelled the branches of a mulberry thicket.
“There's been an Indian here,” he meditated. “I kinder smell the grease
on them twigs. In a hurry, too, or he wouldn't have left his stink
behind.... In war trim, I reckon.” And he took a tiny wisp of scarlet
feather from a fork.
Like a hound he nosed about the ground till he found something. “Here's
his print;” he said “He was a-followin' Jim, for see! he has his foot in
Jim's track. I don't like it. I'm fear'd of what's comin'.”
Slowly and painfully he traced the footing, which led through the
thicket towards a long ridge running northward. In an open grassy place
he almost cried out. “The redskin and Jim was friends. See, here's their
prints side by side, going slow. What in thunder was old Jim up to?”
The trail was plainer now, and led along the scarp of the ridge to a
little promontory which gave a great prospect over the flaming forests
and yellow glades. Boone found a crinkle of rock where he flung himself
down. “It's plain enough,” he said. “They come up here to spy. They were
fear'd of something, and whatever it was it was coming from the west.
See, they kep' under the east side of this ridge so as not to be seen,
and they settled down to spy whar they couldn't be obsarved from below.
I reckon Jim and the redskin had a pretty good eye for cover.”
He examined every inch of the eyrie, sniffing like a pointer dog. “I'm
plumb puzzled about this redskin,” he confessed. “Shawnee, Cherokee,
Chickasaw--it ain't likely Jim would have dealings with 'em. It might be
one of them Far Indians.”
It appeared as if Lovelle had spent most of the previous afternoon on
the ridge, for he found the remains of his night's fire half way down
the north side in a hollow thatched with vines. It was now about three
o'clock. Boone, stepping delicately, examined the ashes, and then sat
himself on the ground and brooded.
When at last he lifted his eyes his face was perplexed.
“I can't make it out nohow. Jim and this Indian was good friends. They
were feelin' pretty safe, for they made a mighty careless fire and
didn't stop to tidy it up. But likewise they was restless, for they
started out long before morning.... I read it this way. Jim met a
redskin that he knowed before and thought he could trust anyhow, and
he's gone off with him seeking powder. It'd be like Jim to dash off
alone and play his hand like that. He figured he'd come back to us with
what we needed and that we'd have the sense to wait for him. I guess
that's right. But I'm uneasy about the redskin. If he's from north
of the river, there's a Mingo camp somewhere about and they've gone
there.... I never had much notion of Seneca Indians, and I reckon Jim's
took a big risk.”
All evening he followed the trail, which crossed the low hills into the
corn-brakes and woodlands of a broader valley. Presently he saw that he
had been right, and that Lovelle and the Indian had begun their
journey in the night, for the prints showed like those of travellers
in darkness. Before sunset Boone grew very anxious. He found traces
converging, till a clear path was worn in the grass like a regulation
war trail. It was not one of the known trails, so it had been made for a
purpose; he found on tree trunks the tiny blazons of the scouts who had
been sent ahead to survey it. It was a war party of Mingos, or whoever
they might be, and he did not like it. He was puzzled to know what
purchase Jim could have with those outland folk.... And yet he had
been on friendly terms with the scout he had picked up.... Another fact
disturbed him. Lovelle's print had been clear enough till the other
Indians joined him. The light was bad, but now that print seemed to have
disappeared. It might be due to the general thronging of marks in the
trail, but it might be that Jim was a prisoner, trussed and helpless.
He supped off cold jerked bear's meat and slept two hours in the canes,
waiting on the moonrise. He had bad dreams, for he seemed to hear drums
beating the eerie tattoo which he remembered long ago in Border raids.
He woke in a sweat, and took the road again in the moonlight. It was not
hard to follow, and it seemed to be making north for the Ohio. Dawn came
on him in a grassy bottom, beyond which lay low hills that he knew alone
separated him from the great river. Once in the Indian Moon of Blossom
he had been thus far, and had gloried in the riches of the place, where
a man walked knee deep in honeyed clover. “The dark and bloody land!”
He remembered how he had repeated the name to himself, and had concluded
that Lovelle had been right and that it was none of the Almighty's
giving. Now in the sharp autumn morning he felt its justice. A cloud had
come over his cheerful soul. “If only I knowed about Jim,” he muttered
“I wonder if I'll ever clap eyes onr his old face again.” Never before
had he known such acute anxiety. Pioneers are wont to trust each other
and in their wild risks assume that the odd chance is on their side.
But now black forebodings possessed him, born not of reasoning but of
instinct. His comrade somewhere just ahead of him was in deadly peril.
And then came the drums.
The sound broke into the still dawn with a harsh challenge. They were
war drums, beaten as he remembered them in Montgomery's campaign. He
quickened his steady hunter's lope into a run, and left the trail for
the thickets of the hill-side. The camp was less than a mile off and he
was taking no chances.
As he climbed the hill the drums grew louder, till it seemed that the
whole world rocked with their noise. He told himself feverishly that
there was nothing to fear; Jim was with friends, who had been south of
the river on their own business and would give him the powder he wanted.
Presently they would be returning to the camp together, and in the
months to come he and Jim would make that broad road through the Gap,
at the end of which would spring up smiling farmsteads and townships
of their own naming. He told himself these things, but he knew that he
lied.
At last, flat on the earth, he peered through the vines on the north
edge of the ridge. Below him, half a mile off, rolled the Ohio, a little
swollen by the rains There was a broad ford, and the waters had spilled
out over the fringe of sand. Just under him, between the bluff and
the river, lay the Mingo camp, every detail of it plain in the crisp
weather.
In the heart of it a figure stood bound to a stake, and a smoky fire
burned at its feet.... There was no mistaking that figure.
Boone bit the grass in a passion of fury. His first impulse was to rush
madly into the savages' camp and avenge his friend. He had half risen to
his feet when his reason told him it was folly. He had no weapon but
axe and knife, and would only add another scalp to their triumph. His
Deckard was slung on his back, but he had no powder. Oh, to be able to
send a bullet through Jim's head to cut short his torment! In all his
life he had never known such mental anguish, waiting there an impotent
witness of the agony of his friend. The blood trickled from his bitten
lips and film was over his eyes.... Lovelle was dying for him and the
others. He saw it all with bitter clearness. Jim had been inveigled to
the Mingo camp taking risks as he always did, and there been ordered to
reveal the whereabouts of the hunting party. He had refused, and endured
the ordeal... Memories of their long comradeship rushed through Boone's
mind and set him weeping in a fury of affection. There was never such a
man as old Jim, so trusty and wise and kind, and now that great soul was
being tortured out of that stalwart body and he could only look on like
a baby and cry.
As he gazed, it became plain that the man at the stake was dead. His
head had fallen on his chest, and the Indians were cutting the green
withies that bound him. Boone looked to see them take his scalp, and so
wild was his rage that his knees were already bending for the onslaught
which should be the death of him and haply of one or two of the
murderers.
But no knife was raised. The Indians seemed to consult together, and one
of them gave an order. Deerskins were brought and the body was carefully
wrapped in them and laid on a litter of branches. Their handling of it
seemed almost reverent. The camp was moving, the horses were saddled,
and presently the whole band began to file off towards the forest. The
sight held Boone motionless. His fury had gone and only wonder and
awe remained. As they passed the dead, each Indian raised his axe in
salute--the salute to a great chief. The next minute they were splashing
through the ford.
An hour later, when the invaders had disappeared on the northern levels,
Boone slipped down from the bluff to the camping place. He stood still
a long time by his friend, taking off his deerskin cap, so that his long
black hair was blown over his shoulders.
“Jim, boy,” he said softly. “I reckon you was the general of us all. The
likes of you won't come again. I'd like ye to have Christian burial.”
With his knife he hollowed a grave, where he placed the body, still
wrapped in its deerskins. He noted on a finger of one hand a gold ring,
a queer possession for a backwoodsman. This he took off and dropped into
the pouch which hung round his neck. “I reckon it'd better go to Mis'
Hanks. Jim's gal 'ud valley it mor'n a wanderin' coyote.”
When he had filled in the earth he knelt among the grasses and repeated
the Lord's Prayer as well as he could remember it. Then he stood up and
rubbed with his hard brown knuckles the dimness from his eyes.
“Ye was allus lookin' for something, Jim,” he said. “I guess ye've found
it now. Good luck to ye, old comrade.”